Thursday, March 26, 2020

STEVE SISOLAK IS THE IDIOT GOV OF NEVADA. - HE BLOCKS THAT MIGHT HELP IN THE WAR AGAINST COVID-19

A stupid little political stunt to Get Trump goes awry in Nevada

Steve Sisolak, the leftist governor of Nevada, decided to play doctor by banning the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, two drugs that are being used elsewhere to treat COVID-19
"While these drugs serve necessary medical purposes, this regulation protects the Nevadans who need them and prevents unnecessary hoarding," Sisolak wrote on Twitter.
Unnecessary hoarding?  The hoarding thing is a smokescreen; his real reason was to slap at President Trump, who touted these medications as showing promise and even mistakenly said they had been approved for use by the FDA.  That's his real reason for the limit on the unproven drug, which goes against the "right to try" and the current national mobilization effort to get everyone well by suspending burdensome regulations in the medical community to encourage experimentation and swift solutions.  What Nevada needs, see, is more administrative-state regulation, which is showing all signs of going badly for him.
According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, here was Sisolak's originally stated reason, which has a clear reference to President Trump:
Sisolak announced an emergency regulation prohibiting the drugs' use in a statement that said there was "no consensus among COVID-19 experts or Nevada's own medical health advisory team" that the medications  were an effective treatment for the virus.
Tellingly, this semi-prohibition comes right on the heels of the death of an Arizona man who tried to self-medicate, fatally taking a fish tank cleaning additive with a similar name, and killing himself as well as sickening his wife.  She has since blamed President Trump. 
Sen. Ted Cruz could tell what Sisolak's ban was really about — Getting Trump — and he said something.  According to the Reno Gazette-Journal:
On Wednesday, Cruz wrote on Twitter: "During this crisis, we should listen to the science & the medical professionals," Cruz tweeted on Wednesday. "The opposite approach: the Governor of Nevada, practicing medicine w/o a license — trying to score political points against Trump — & prohibiting NV doctors from prescribing medicines to treat COVID19."
Sisolak hollers about "no consensus" as reason for his move, but now looks like Sisolak has decided the consensus, limiting the availability of the drug on the market as bad stuff, and never mind that portion of the medical community that thinks it does work. 
Sisolak has since clarified that he hasn't totally banned the use of the drug — he's allowing it for hospital use, which is for COVID-19 patients at death's door.  It's sad stuff because the drug reportedly shows the most promise in early-stage COVID-19 patients.  But Sisolak's the doctor now, so late-stage can have his exception.
Where he really gets into the playing doctor thing, though, is by permitting it for prescription by doctors for outpatient use, but only with only a 30-day supply.
What happens to the guy who needs a 40-day supply to get well?  People are different, and one-size-fits-all works badly in medicine.
With the drug banned for the forty-day guy, he's going to be looking into the black market, or, in a worst-case scenario, under the kitchen sink, for what he needs.  So is the uncertain guy who forgot to pay his big Obamacare insurance premium.  So is the slightly sick guy who can't get an appointment because the doctors are too busy with more urgent cases.  The whole thing interferes with doctors' ability to practice medicine and patients' "right to try."  Too bad if you're sick — no hydroxychloroquine for you! 
All of them — and anyone else who thinks he might get sick — have in fact just been incentivized by the Nevada governor's stupid micromanaging move to...hoard up. 
It's ironic, because Sisolak couldn't do anything better to incentivize hoarding than to initiate bans and conditions and prohibitions.  In his current "hoarding" justification, he now admits that the drug has some promising medical applications for COVID-19, just as Trump says, as well as for treatment of lupus and malaria, so now he's limiting availability to help non-COVID-19 patients, he says.  A normal person in normal market would ramp up production to accommodate everyone who wants it.  This guy likes the "divide it up and ration it out" model instead — a feature, not a bug, of socialized medicine.
If you wanted to encourage hoarding, there probably isn't a better way to do it than to cut off access.  Just ask any surge of travelers after an entry ban is introduced, or a pot stash house owner in the face of some new prohibition, gun- and ammo-buyers after gun- and ammo-buying limits are introduced, or a stock market participant after the switch breakers are introduced.  Prohibitions are precisely what encourage hoarding.  Ramping up production to accompany higher demand is what ends the impulse for hoarding.
It's nothing but Democrat administrative-state mentality at work here — first, the slap at Trump, and second, the move to crush the wreckers and hoarders — all coming at a time when the private sector is stepping up production of necessary things in a pandemic, the innovators are going gangbusters  with new solutions, doctors are experimenting in uncertainty as never before and the regulators in Washington are getting out of the way in a bid to hasten solutions.
What Nevada needs, he seems to be saying, is more bureaucrats, more enforcers, and more regulations, because there's just too much freedom and in a pandemic, people are escaping "all proper control."  He's moving against the Zeitgeist, led by President Trump. Expect a lot more self-justification and backtracking from him, he's not making himself popular


COVID-19 Probably Won't Destroy Society, but the Government's Reaction Might


The Washington Post recently touted "an alarming new scientific model" that warns that treating COVID-19 like a somewhat more severe strain of flu won't cut it.  The model predicts over a million U.S fatalities unless we shut down all non-essential mingling until a vaccine is developed, "which could take 12 to 18 months at best."
Pretty bleak stuff.  In fact, that's about the bleakest take on COVID-19 you'll find.
Let's run with it.
Let's momentarily not raise a fuss about having no reason to trust the model's underlying algorithm or whatever unknown assumptions about the virus generated its scary predictions.  We'll also ignore that there's no chance the Washington Post or any other major media outlet would present a balanced picture by informing us of any expert opinions or data not supporting the paper's dire take.  Furthermore, let's just forget that there even are experts who think the media-generated panic about COVID-19 is a bigger problem than the virus itself.
We'll also entirely ignore the media's generally appalling track record concerning "expert" projections of hypothetical disasters.  In fact, we'll ignore their altogether abysmal record of spreading misinformation when it matters most.  Pretend they never created a completely unjustified panic over the prospect of massive Y2K technology failures.  Nor remember they've been serially predicting we have only ten years 'til the Earth becomes uninhabitable from environmental damage for at least the last 50.
The preposterous and poisonous story that Donald Trump entered the White House as a Russian mole?  Ignore it.  The completely bogus "hands up, don't shoot" narrative about Michael Brown that directly caused mass rioting and the assassination of at least a dozen cops?  Never happened.
We're also going to have to forget that they utterly trivialized the very mortal threat posed by COVID-19 they're hyping.  Avert your gaze from the idiotic ruckus over identifying the virus's Chinese origin the media raised so they could, yet again, chant another round of malignant and infantile non sequiturs about Trump being a racist.
Finally, we'll need to ignore that there's no evidence that social distancing is even effective against the spread of COVID-19.  Studies have shown that it can work only against the flu, which itself isn't even certain.  And the whole point of the extreme measures being pushed on us is that COVID-19 is orders of magnitude more dangerous, hence we can't depend on even surefire strategies effective against the flu.  A medical expert interviewed for a FOX News piece promoting the effectiveness of social distancing says, "There are many moving parts and variables and bias implicated in [social distancing] studies."  At the end of the day, she admits there's no scientific reason at all to think the extreme measures we've adopted will accomplish anything.  It just comes down to "common sense," which apparently is an acceptable guide only when it increases rather than ameliorates panic.
So we'll ignore that, even during the proposed lockdowns, people will encounter others infected by COVID-19 and the many surfaces on which they've left traces of the virus on trips to grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations.  Most will also be getting packages by mail handled, breathed on, and likely sneezed and coughed on, too, by potentially infected carriers at various points in their journey.
Let's momentarily sweep under the rug everything showing that we don't have a clue whether the fear-induced voluntary extreme isolation and government-mandated shutdowns and bans to which we've so far passively acquiesced even serve a purpose.
Even though the reasons for believing it are worse than tenuous — indeed, even though you'd actually have to be pretty stupid to blindly trust any of the media's threatening scenarios — let's give the Washington Post some completely unearned benefit of the doubt.  For the sake of argument, we'll accept that isolating ourselves and shutting down almost the entire economy is the only way to bring an otherwise unavoidable million-person death toll from COVID-19 down to just a couple hundred thousand and ignore any reason for thinking the latter might very well be the most we were likely to suffer anyway.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad
We're now in a position to observe a remarkable fact.  The restrictions and spur-of-the-moment peremptory government abridgment of our most basic rights to which we've acquiesced are still completely unjustified.  The idea that we're considering extending them indicates that we've completely lost our collective mind.
Eight hundred thousand additional deaths over the course of a year, while not to be taken lightly, isn't a catastrophic increase.  In 2017, 2.8 million Americans died.  So our worst-case COVID-19 scenario is already less than a 29% rise.  Moreover, the average age of COVID-19 fatalities is 80.  In Italy, the country whose high fatality rate is supposed to make us panic, a whopping 88% had at least one other serious illness listed as cause of death.  Many had two or three.  So a significant number of projected U.S. fatalities are, sadly, out of time almost independently of the virus.
More importantly, though a year in which we averaged 9,900 instead of 7,700 deaths a day would be unpleasant and stressful, it's the sort of natural misfortune that occasionally strikes human societies.  What little recovering society as a whole needed would be over in a few years.
Even the worst-case scenarios presented by our dishonest, fear-mongering media don't present some kind of unique catastrophe the likes of which no human society has ever faced and for which it's impossible to predict the long-term damage or even if we'll ever recover.
The same, however, can't be said for the insane idea of an extended period of time living under draconian government-enforced social and economic sanctions.  Virtually every single brick-and-mortar business in America could wind up out of business, and unheard-of levels of unemployment are guaranteed.
The Great Depression, with its suicides and bread lines, saw a first-year decrease in U.S. GDP of only 8.5%.  The next year, it decreased just 6.4%.  In the third and final year of significant economic downturn, GDP went down 12.5%.  Can anyone seriously think completely shutting down the U.S economy doesn't have the real potential to yield those numbers?
The economy isn't a collection of isolated sectors not affecting each other.  If 80% of U.S. brick-and-mortar businesses go under and unemployment reaches 30%, the reverberations will be catastrophic and long-term.  There's no reason to think we won't cause shortages in medical supplies that over time will make the 800,000 fatalities we may have avoided from COVID-19 look small.
America is already suffering from a suicide crisis.  The decimation of American businesses and jobs resulting from a long-term shutdown of the entire U.S. economy is guaranteed to render many already struggling Americans' lives too much to bear.
But we will be facing not just a nation devastated by massive business failure and unemployment.  We'll be facing it under government decrees making us alone and isolated.  If you were trying to design the most malevolently evil plan possible for America, increasing the number of deaths by 25% for a year and concentrating them mostly among the old and the sick wouldn't even come close.  But isolating everyone so he's deprived of human companionship while inflicting a historically unprecedented economic catastrophe...that would be hard to beat.
Even if we accept the most hysterically alarmist U.S. predictions, blithely talking about isolating every single American as if humans were machines to whom companionship means nothing while outlawing most economic activity is madness.  It's the societal analogue of someone who tries to cure a broken foot by strapping himself into a machine that stands a good chance of tearing his leg off.
"Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad."  All this casual talk of shutting down our economy and isolating everyone in America without considering the awful uncharted waters we'd be entering indicates we've become mad enough to destroy ourselves.
Moreover, if our leaders try to deprive of us of human companionship until COVID-19 is no longer a threat while strangling the economy to avoid something that, even in the worst-case scenario presented by our unreliable media, is a perfectly natural occurrence that history has shown humans handle and shrug off, one has to wonder: are our leaders mad, or are they trying to destroy us?
Michael Thau is working on a book about the fake Russian hack of the DNC.  You can find all his work at his website, Aclearerpicture.net.

Nolte: Nevada’s Democrat Governor Outlaws Antimalarial Drugs for Coronavirus Sufferers

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MARCH 17: Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak speaks during a news conference on the state's response to the coronavirus outbreak at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building on March 17, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sisolak announced a statewide closure of all nonessential businesses by noon on …
Ethan Miller/Getty
4:09
Nevada’s Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an order Tuesday outlawing the use of antimalarial drugs for sufferers of the coronavirus.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the “governor’s order prohibits the prescribing and dispensing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for a COVID-19 diagnosis[.]”
“At this point in time, there is no known cure for COVID-19 and we must not withhold these drugs from those who need them,” the governor said in his statement. “The best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to stay home for Nevada, not to stockpile these drugs.”
Sisolak said he signed the emergency order after receiving a request from the Pharmacy Board, which claims the effectiveness of these drugs to treat the Chinese virus has “not been established,” and that “an emergency exists due to the hoarding and stockpiling” of these antimalaria drugs: chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
This order makes no sense, especially in a world where another Democrat governor, Andrew Cuomo of New York, has ordered trials of the malaria drug. Saying he agrees with the president, Cuomo announced last week: “We’re also implementing the trial drug:”
We have secured 70,000 hydrocloroquin; 10,000 zithromax from the federal government. I want to thank the FDA for moving very expeditiously to get us this supply.
The President ordered the FDA to move and the FDA moved. We’re going to get the supply and the trial will start this Tuesday. The President is optimistic about these drugs and we are all optimistic that it could work.
I’ve spoken with a number of health officials and there is a good basis to believe that they could work. Some health officials point to Africa, which has a very low infection rate and there’s a theory that because they’re taking these anti-malaria drugs in Africa, it may actually be one of the reasons why the infection rate is low in Africa. We don’t know, but let’s find out and let’s find out quickly. And I agree with the President on that and we’re going to start and we’re going to start Tuesday.
While Sisolak is correct that the FDA has not approved the drug for coronavirus sufferers, the FDA has approved the drug for a number of other ailments, which means it is safe for human consumption — as long you consult with your doctor and follow the prescription orders.
In other words, what you don’t want to do is look for something that might have hydroxychloroquine in it and gobble it down, like some poor fool did this week with his fish tank cleaner.
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support giving these drugs a try… This includes studies… Again, we’re a long way from FDA approval through clinical trials,  and the Africa correlation Cuomo spoke of might indeed have nothing to do with the malaria drug and have everything to do with Africa’s heat. Scientists believe the Chinese virus doesn’t fare well in warm weather.
Nonetheless, if someone I loved was in throes of the Wuhan virus and I lived in Nevada and was not allowed to try everything reasonable to save this person, I’d be furious. And this malaria drug *is* reasonable. What’s more, how can there be hoarding going on in Nevada when 1) you can only acquire this drug through a prescription, and 2) there are only around 300 coronavirus sufferers throughout the entire state?
As far as I know, the only “hoarding” going on is by those who can write a prescription to themselves, meaning doctors and the like. But the shortage is a worldwide shortage, and for obvious reasons: countries all over the world want  the drug to help their own coronavirus sufferers.
It would make perfect sense for Sisolak to outlaw doctors prescribing these drugs as a preemptive prescription, as a “just in case” prescription. But to deny it to those already suffering with the coronavirus is a gross violation of human rights, and an infringement of the relationship between patient and doctor.
This stinks of partisan politics, of an anti-science governor putting the trolling of Trump over the well-being of his own citizens.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNCFollow his Facebook Page here.

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